He Writes Again

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We are going to be in Exodus 34 today. Exodus 34. There was a pastor, and he had a 15-year-old son who was coming upon his 16th birthday. And we all know what happens on our 16th birthday, correct? Yeah. Our insurance goes up. Right? Yeah. So he really wanted to drive. He said, dad, can we start talking about a car? And his dad, of course, like I said, was a pastor. I said, son, we can certainly have that conversation. But I would love for you to bring those grades up. I would love for you to start having a daily quiet time and Bible study. And I want you to cut your hair. And the son said, OK. So about five or six months later, son approaches the dad again and says, dad, hey, you said that you're right. I've been going to church every week. I've been doing this Bible study. I've been going to Exodus with my buddy. I've done all of this, except I just don't understand about the hair.

Moses had long hair out of every picture that I've seen. And the dad just laughed and said, that is funny. It's also funny that he walked everywhere he went. Yeah, so we're running out of Moses jokes. I'm glad this is my last Sunday, because there's just not that many good ones left. I have a high standard. And I've only made up one. And I thought it was pretty good. But we are out of those jokes. I'm going to set a timer, not a timer that goes off like a few weeks ago, to make sure that I just stay on point. Sound good? Like I said, we are in Exodus 34. Just a quick show of hands. Who of us are old enough to remember back in the day when you used to work on a Word or an Excel document and it didn't autosave? Like you had to go up there and click that stuff, right? Yeah. Like when I was writing my dissertation, I had this like 160 page document. I had it on six different thumb drives.

And for those of young people, a thumb drive is like a cloud. And so I had six. And they were all scattered. And if I would work on my dissertation, I'm having to back up every single thumb drive. And I kept one in a safe, fireproof safe, with my passports and all this other fun stuff. I kept one at my lab. I kept one with my mentor because I know he would never let me down, right? But when I went to go defend and I went to go print my dissertation, the working copy was gone. Oh my gosh. I had six backups. But do you know, can you just imagine my heart at that moment? Do you think I could have ever come up with that exact document again in like a week? No, I'm good. But yeah, no one's that good, right? So by initial, my heart just stopped. Well, that's kind of what we're going to look at today. We're going to go back and we're going to look at something that God does.

And he does the exact same way as he does before. We're going to look at the tablets being remade. And the good thing is we didn't lose anything in an erasure or a hard drive crash. That's kind of where we are. And just for a brief recap, for those of you that were not here or were asleep in the last few weeks, we have been making our way through this last series of return to God, right? This sort of seeing God's people really turn back to him in a moment of just utter sinfulness. Then it all started in chapter 32. Drew started preaching, right? We see Moses go up onto Mount Sinai. And he's going to go up. And what is he going up to the mountain for? The view? What's he going up there for? You can answer. I love the feedback. Where is he going? Yeah. And what's he going to get?

He's going to get the 10 commandments. Nice. But yeah, get the 10 commandments. But we see what happens next, right? God gets angry because he sees his people taking the gifts that he had given them and turns them into an idol. And they begin to worship this golden calf. God gets super angry, decides he wants to kill everybody and start again. Moses says, well, whoa, whoa, let me see what I can do. Goes to the bottom of the mountain, gets angry, and smashes God's 10 commandments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could you imagine? Imagine the God of the universe hand-wrote on stone tablets, gave them to you, and you just broke them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like breaking your mother-in-law's china, right? Like, yeah, right? Like, yeah, you're not, you won't come back in the house again. Right? And then we see this God saying, you know what? I'm going to give you everything I promised,

except I'm not going to go into the promised land with you. Just go. Otherwise, I'm going to just kill you all. God's people realize that this was a moment that they did not. They would rather spend an eternity in the desert with God than a moment in the promised land without him. So they repent. You see a 180-degree turn, right? They repent to God. They get rid of all of the stuff that they had been given by the Egyptians, all that gold. They shed it all. God changes his mind and makes a few promises to Moses in a tent. And now we see the next part. We're going to see a promise fulfilled, but we're going to see Moses going to head back up to the top of the mountain. Sound good? So we are going to start off in chapter 34, verse one. I'm just going to read it all. It may be on separate screens, but like I said, I'm just going to complete it. The Lord said to Moses,

cut for yourselves two tablets of stone like the first. And I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you and that no one else be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hands two stone tablets. I love how God starts off the entire thing just by saying, hey, I remember what you did. You broke my stuff. Right? He just comes out. He just calls Moses out. Hey, you're broken, but he's okay, right? Like we moved on. We've gotten over that. Don't worry about it. I'm just going to go ahead.

I'm going to do it the exact same way that I had done before. He's going to write on those tablets and it's not going to be a different version, right? I just got an iPhone update on my phone. I don't know how it's working now. I'm going to go relearn my iPhone. Right? So these tablets aren't going to have any new, anything else. It's not going to be a beta version. It's not going to be a dumbed down version. It's not going to be a cliff note version. He's going to do the exact same, even after all the stuff that God's people did that make him mad, he's not changing a single thing. Right? I want you to see it. I want you to see that it is the same covenant, the same God, the same words. We good? We're all here? And then he has Moses cut the stones, but the stones are blank. This is a, I don't know. I just felt this as just some significance. We're going to come back and talk about it,

but God's going to, Moses is bringing up just stone tablets. That's all he's bringing to the deal. And I think that's kind of what God even asked for us. Right? He doesn't, he's going to do all the work. He just needs you to show up, humbled and ready to be used. Right? I just, to me, that just is amazing. You know what, Moses? Just cut the tablets, just keep everyone else away and just come up. That's all I'm asking. Just do that. Pretty simple instructions, right? I think we could have done it. I think we could have done it. And like I said, it hit me, right? It hit me. And some of you, I guess, like I said, I don't know, let me take it back one little bit. When Moses cut the stones,

and we say that that is his entire job, and that he's going to bring him up those blank stones. And then I sort of, like I said, I started thinking in my head, man, like what do we have that we've broken? Maybe a marriage, maybe a promise to our spouse, promise to our kid, maybe a trust with our spouse or with our kid. What is something that we have broken and that we can take to God? Right? I want to put a pin on that because like I said, my brain, I know Drew's looking at me, sometimes my brain takes these tangents when I'm preparing these sermons. And this is a tangent that took me a long, long, long way off. And I just wanted to mention it because I feel like God wouldn't have just done that to me. I mean, I would've done a disjustice just not to mention, right? Like we all have these broken things that we have broken that God has given us. And some of us are still hanging on to those broken pieces.

But I want to put a pin on that and I'm going to come back I'm gonna talk about that here in just a little bit. Sound good? And I also began thinking like, this reminds me of, have you guys ever seen a vow renewal of like a married couple having a vow renewal? Yeah, no. Raise your hand if you know what vows are. Nice, raise your hand if you know what renewals are. So we just put them together. How many of you have seen them? Nice. Usually, the one I saw was that this couple had just gone through a lot. They had lost their kids were in college and they had lost their kids on a college trip. Both of them were in a car accident and passed away. And they had been having marital troubles before all of that started. And they were just about at their wits end. And they had spent about four years just recovering from those losses. So they went ahead and they renewed their vows,

which, right, I mean, I was in college, I didn't understand, but all the people in the audience, everybody was just crying because the vows were the same, right? The vows were the exact same ones that they had taken when they first got married, but they meant so much more because of what they went through. That's where God's people are. That's where Moses is. Does that make sense? We're not just recopying the 10 commandment. God's presence, his laws, who he is, means so much more to these people because of what they have just gone through, okay? So like I said, it's not just a rewriting of the 10 commandments. There is so much more meaning behind it. In the next set of verses five through nine, this is pretty amazing. Verse five, the Lord descends in the cloud and stood with him there, him being Moses, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord pressed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord

the God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. But who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation? Wow, like this is a lot. This is a lot. These are some amazing verses. Drew, this is what you have tattooed on your arm, right? He has some of these verses, actually six and seven, I believe, actually tattooed in the original language, right, on his arm. Yeah, so you should go ask him about them. But so this is an amazing little bit of verses. How many of you guys have ever written a resume? Nice. I've never actually applied for a job, but I do have a CV. I have something like a resume. But how many of you have padded your resume? How many of you proficient in Excel means

that you've actually downloaded it onto your computer? Right, right. Everyone pads their stuff a little bit, right? Or even has chat GTP get in there and makes it sound like you were a janitor, but you had this, you know, executive position of something, right? I mean, it all happens, right? But we also put something on resumes that get by all of that. We put references on our resume. Don't you think? Right, right. I hope so. If you don't, as a professional, I would highly recommend it. But you put your references. God just gave us his resume right here, right? He tells us his name. And he describes himself in his own words, except there's no padding, right? There's no padding. And his references are mentioned all the way throughout the rest of the entire Old Testament. And they are mentioned in the exact same fashion that he presents himself here to Moses. It's the perfect resume.

And so I really wanna pick those characteristics apart. Sound good? So we're gonna take this very slowly, all right? We're gonna take it very, we're gonna start out with looking at these characteristics. Okay? One, merciful and gracious. Again, we talked about this being one of my pet peeves, if you don't write, not understanding what the difference between mercy and grace is, right? It's like yield signs. I hope you yield and I'm around, right? It's like saying expresso or irregardless around Caperton, right? Right, I know, see his skin's crawling. If you ever wanna get to him, just ask for an expresso. I know, look, he cringes every time you say expresso. So, right, so again, merciful, we see, and it's an order, I love the order. Mercy means God holds back what Israel have coming. Grace, again, means that they would never earn, right? Like that second set of tablets.

Makes sense? So we see that he describes himself as merciful and grace. And the word, the Hebrew word for merciful comes from another word, right? Which means mother's womb, right? If you're a mother, that means something special. As a biologist and an immunologist, the womb is one of the most magnificent places on the planet. It is perfect. Like you're growing another existence. It is perfect. It's beautiful. It's strange, we don't understand it, but it's amazing.

And he uses this word to just describe a people who just built a calf and worshiped it instead of himself. You see what that's grace and merciful? Man. So he starts out with these two amazing things, right? Amazing qualities, amazing qualities. The next one is slow to anger, which I know some of you are thinking, okay, he literally just wanted to wipe out the entire nation of Israel. But that was kind of a righteous anger. Was it not? And was that their first thing they've done? No, no. Parents, we all know, don't we? The end of that long day, when your kid has just picked at every boundary that you've ever drawn in your life and you've almost had it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it takes a while to build up to that point, right? Slow to anger. And it's a fun one. Literally in Hebrew, it means long no's. Yeah, yeah. Is that awesome? Long no's, right, in Hebrew. So anger burns right in the nasa, so right.

So if you're a hothead, you would have a short nose. Right? So as Christians, literally the Chisenhall Fellowship, we should be walking around with the longest noses in Burleson. Should we not? Should we not? I love my son, but that guy drives with his emotions, and I don't understand it. I mean, I've done some things, but I'm pretty generally okay with the stuff I've done in my truck, right? But I never let other people's situations affect you that much, right? And that's kind of what God is doing here, right? Man, have a long nose. Have a long nose, and it's so funny. I wanted to see about half of you looked at the person's nose next to you, which was really funny. I'm not talking figuratively, guys. All right, here we go. Pardon me, I'm not talking literally, all right? But so think about it. If anyone ever deserved God's short fuse, it would have been the people, again,

dancing around that gold calf. But God says, hey, my fuse is long. And how long is ours, right? With our spouse, with our kids, with that person in the drive-through, with that person driving, I've tried the wedding cake thing, it doesn't work. All I know is that every single person in Burleson today had a wedding cake in their car driving to church. Statistically, there's not that many people getting married, and then all I saw was pre-diabetics. I was like, my gosh, they don't need that much cake. Right? So I'm gonna have to find me a new way, right? But this is one that I'm pretty guilty of. And men, I know, men, our chief emotion is anger. Do you know why? Biologically, you know why anger's men's chief emotion? Because it's the most empowering. It's the quickest one to a man's chemical brain structure.

So it's the one most of us probably have to keep in check. I take, sometimes I just need to take a little break before having a conversation, and I say, hey, let's take five. I would highly advise us take five. Because that's me going and finding grace again. Right? Our short fuses, how many of us, how long is your nose? How long is your nose? Abounding and steadfast love. This is pretty amazing. Because, and we're gonna come back to this, and actually I'm gonna do it now, who knows? We're a little short on time. But the steadfast love in Hebrew is hased. Did I say that right? I hope I said that right. I have this little app and it told me, hased, right? Now, it's hard because the Hebrew word, there is no amazing, I don't even think there's an adequate. It may be like just a subpar translation into the English. So there's like connotations that they take and they use

in order to give this word meaning, right? But it means like a loyal love, right? A loyal, a covenant loyalty. Right, that's what we see in the Old Testament. And we see it in multiple, we see it in Psalms. We see it in Lamentation. We see this word used throughout the entire Old Testament. In the Greek, in the Greek it means affirm and immovable love. Affirm and immovable love, right? And if I compare the two, when I look at that first one, I really, God's love, God's love isn't trailing along, is it? When you look at that word, God's love is chasing, right? God, that Old Testament love, God is literally chasing down his people. And when you combine that New Testament and that Old Testament word we use, right? We take that has said how God was a steadfast towards us. And we look at that New Testament version, what we became because of his love. His steadfast love makes us a steadfast people

and you cannot stay immovable on your own. Makes sense? But we can stand on his. So when you combine the meaning of that Old Testament and the New Testament, the meaning doesn't necessarily change but who it's towards does. Which is amazing when you look at the fact of what happened at the cross. Does that make sense? Like God's, it's the same, it's the exact same. We just get to have it within us all the time. To me, that's amazing. The last little part, forgiving, iniquity, transgression and sin. That's repetitive and redundant, is it not? But it's a little bit. It's three different words for sin. Iniquity is sort of what is bent or crooked. Transgression is what we see probably more on the outward. It's sort of like this open rebellion. It's a rebellious type of sin. And then you have, again, and then you have sin. Just straight up what we would label as sin.

And that's, picture that is like missing the mark. Does that make sense? You're missing the mark. So when you look at all three, transgression, that rebellion, the iniquity, that crookedness in us and the sin of just missing the mark, whatever it is, God's covering it all. Whatever it is, God has a word for forgiving it. And here's the hard part. I'm gonna give you a heads up, right? It's who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generations. Does this mean God's gonna punish your kids and your grandkids for your sins? No, no, no. It's clear throughout multiple parts of the Bible. Your sin is your sin, correct? But let me make it a little bit more personal. How many of you parents have opened your mouth and you sounded like your mom or your dad? How many of us had alcoholic parents or abusive parents

and you're still feeling the sins of those actions? And your kids as well. Does that make sense? Is it a far off stretch of what he's saying? No, he's saying that our sin has an effect. And I wanna be clear. Like this is, there's no Joel Osteen. Like we may be forgiven, but we will answer for our sins. Are we understood? If you're not clear, please talk to us or read the entire book of Revelation. Sound good? Like we will stand in judgment. So God, but God will forgive, but there's consequences for our sin. That part will not go away. We can ask for forgiveness, but we will still suffer the consequences of those sins. Does that make sense? And God's with us through the consequences. That's the cool part, right? We don't have to walk those consequences alone, but that's where we can really lead in this weird aspect of sin, right? It's sin can become a secret, right?

Sin can become a secret, especially in a world where, man, social media, we are quick to judge, slow to listen. It's when those sins become silent. It's when we look back at that other stuff and we look at the pieces of our lives that we're still holding onto because we're afraid to get them fixed. Or we don't really understand that God's gonna go ahead and in the morning, He gets to make you anew. And that's where sin gets in. And that's where it's transferred throughout the generations. Okay? To me, this was just amazingly insightful of how that generational sin, and the sin can stop with you. Does that make sense? Yep, the sin can stop with you. Like I said, think of it like an inheritance. Some families pass down debt, right? Grandpa's bad decisions, we're still suffering from those on the books.

But God says, I have an inheritance for you and it's bigger. Three or four generations of debt is nothing to the trust fund of grace and love and forgiveness that He's gonna offer you for eternity. Makes sense? If I had a scale, there's the win. It's okay to admit sin. It is a necessity of a Christian walk to admit sin. A dark, hidden sin is a fester. It's just festering. And it's gonna impact way more than just you. Way more than just you.

Okay? Like I said, if somebody has to be this lion in the sand for that sin to stop, man, why not us? Why not you? And I want you to notice one more thing. In the same breath, God says He forgives an equity, transgression, and sin, and that He will by no means again clear the guilty. How can both be true? Is God merciful or is He just just? Which one? Oh, He's gonna be both. Don't spoil it. But we're gonna put a pin in it. Just put a little pin in your notes. Be right back. BRB. Is that right? That's right. BRB, isn't that be right back? For everybody who doesn't like words, BRB. Be right back. All right, let's move on to verses eight and nine. We're gonna come back to that. Moses quickly bowed his head towards the earth in worship and he said, if now I have found favor in your sight, oh Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us for it is a stiff-necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin

and take us for your inheritance. Moses' prayer is so direct. Israel, again, is a stiff-necked people. And Moses isn't offering or softening that diagnosis. He's asking for a pardon. And he's also including himself. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty amazing. He had did nothing compared to what the rest of Israel had done, but he still included himself with all of them. Those people, our people.

I like it. Stiff-necked, again, remember who first said that, right? God said that. So here we see Moses again, just saying God's words right back to him, right back to him, right? It's the reason that you're not gonna go with him for you are a stiff-necked people back in 33. Now, Moses, again, takes those words and sticks it right back. Yes, they are stubborn. That's exactly why we can't do this without you. Gosh, that's that realization that I hope we all can come to one day.

Man, we just can't do this without you, right? And that's how we should pray, right? Remember the resume? God's perfect. Moses doesn't even hand God his resume. He brings God the need. He brings God the need. So right, the question. When you come to God, do you bring him your resume or do you bring him your need? Which one do you feel like you should bring him? Which one do you feel like you just need to fill out? Are there boxes that you think you're checking that's gonna make you a better Christian than the person sitting next to you? And bring him that stuff. Ask for his presence. You're built on that faithfulness here. You're built on that faithfulness. Verses 10 through 17.

And he said, behold, I am making a covenant before all of your people, and I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth nor in any nation, and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Again, God comes out and says, hey, I'm making a covenant. And I love it. It's not probation. He's not, right? He's not gonna write the 10 commandments. He goes, let's try this for 90 days. And if we like you, we'll go ahead and hire you on full time. No, no, no, there's no probationary period, man. This is just instant boom. There it is. There you go. I love the covenants. But I think every covenant has a fence, right? Just like every good parent, every rule has a boundary, right? And the boundaries are stated in the next verses kind of 11 through 17. We see these boundaries, right? And to be honest, I think modern ears,

sometimes this stuff can be hard to hear. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and take care lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim. For you shall worship no other God for the Lord, whose name is jealous.

Is a jealous God. Oof, who also that coming? Nice, right? So we see the deal. You get into the land, but there's no side deals. There's nothing going on. You're just moving in. Everything's gone. You're gonna take care of everything. You're taking down all of those altars, the Canaanite gods, right? All those things, you just take them down. Not even a piece, not even the base, whatever it is, take them down. They're not even decoration. They're not keepsakes. There's nothing. There's no history either, right? Just get rid of them. Just get rid of them. Why? Lest they become a snare. And why is that wise? Is that you don't fall back in idolatry any differently than you fell into it. A little bit at a time.

Am I wrong? Isn't that way with most sin, right? It's little things. And then all of a sudden those little things get a little bigger, but we dismiss them. We're just gonna keep going along our way. Little things keep building up, and building up, and building up. And then what do we have? What do we have? It's like keeping that phone number you shouldn't have in your phone still in your phone. It's like keeping that private web browser going, or that bottle hidden in the garage, or that substance we just can't get rid of. Maybe it's the sin we're afraid to admit, right? Maybe pride is keeping us from admitting that. That habit, that, right? That's why we get rid of those, to get rid of the snare. It's practical. Delete it, cancel it. Find someone you trust, get some accountability. Invite his presence when you're at your weakest. Not only when you're at your strongest.

That's when we need him the most. That's why this is the biggest, gosh, what a great piece of advice, right? If any of you are looking for a great piece of advice, right there is that. It could be busyness, man, if you, yeah, busyness is the root of most sin. Get rid of it. Get rid of all of those idols. Anything that is standing in your way of experiencing the presence of your God. And then verse 14 gives us one of those surprising names in the Bible, God, the Lord, whose name is jealous. Ooh, is jealousy bad? Is it bad? Petty jealousy is.

Petty is. That Audi R8, gosh. We say, if you've been married and you say your vows, is there jealousy in your vows? What were they? Forsaking all others? Feel like, dang it, I don't remember my vows. Didn't we promise not to forsake others? Didn't we promise to tell death do us part? All that other kind of stuff? That points to what? Yeah, jealousy. My wife is mine. Back off. But that's not a petty, that's not a petty jealousy, is it? No, that's a coveted relationship. So we have jealousy all throughout, right? I mean, this is a pretty healthy jealousy. Pretty much what he's saying is this.

I don't want you to worship any other God before me. And not because I'm threatened by those ding dongs and those golden calves. No, no, no. It's because God desires your love so much. That he just can't stand it. He also knows what's best for us. And he sets those boundaries that we can keep our focus on him. Not on those little things that we're afraid to admit. Not on those little pieces that we're afraid to get rid of. Those little pieces of whatever's broken, of those broken original tablets that were destroyed and sinned that we are still holding on of. That somehow we think that makes us who we are? No. Get rid of all of those stupid lies. No, God wants a clean slate so that he can mold you and make you exactly how he needs it. And that's what we're saying here. That's literally what he's saying. And if we keep going in verse 15 through 17, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land

when they were after their gods and sacrificed their gods and they invited you to eat as their sacrifice, or you take their daughters for your sons and their daughters for after their gods and make your sons after their gods, you shall not make for yourself any gods. So again, not only is he saying, I don't want you to make any other gods, because I want, right? God loves us so much. What else is he saying? He's saying get rid of it because after you're gone and your grandkids aren't gonna remember the 40 years that we've spent in the desert. They're not gonna remember the moment that God said, I'm not going with you. What's gonna keep them from re-engaging with those idols? Translate that in today's wisdom. Don't talk to strangers. How many people talk to strangers every day on Facebook? I swear I'm not letting my kid have a cell phone until they're like 16. What else?

I mean, there are so many things in this world that we have just let go that were idols but we didn't get rid of but are now monuments of worship within your own family. Within our own church, within our own little city. The minute we read the Bible and we take his words lightly is the moment that we disregard truth and accept death. These words have an amazing purpose. Have an amazing purpose.

Moses went up with a blank stone, came down with God's words on it. But think about a speed limit sign. My neighborhood is posted 25. Is that speed limit sign gonna keep you going 25? Is it gonna control the weight of your foot? No. What's the purpose of the sign? The law of the stone can show you what's right but you can't make it right. And Israel would end up breaking this covenant too. Gosh, over and over and over. Right, so God made another promise, right, through Jeremiah, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. And Paul says that if you belong to Christ, you are a letter written not with ink but with the spirit of a living God on tablets, not on tablets, but on tablets of human hearts. Moses brings us the stone in the gospel. We don't even bring the stone. God gives us a new heart and he writes on it. A new every morning. John opens his gospel, I love how John,

and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. Glory is of only the son of the father, full of grace and truth. And just a few verses later, he says, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Full of grace and truth. That is Exodus 34:6, right? Abounding in steadfast love and faith. John is saying the name of God proclaimed on Sinai was born in Bethlehem. Moses heard the name. In Jesus we could see it face to face. That's pretty amazing. Name me another book that fulfills that many promises. That is that glorious over thousands and thousands of years. So the question I asked you to hold on to, right? How can God give iniquity, transgression, and sin, and also by no means clear the guilty. It's not a contradiction. It's the cross. Picture a courtroom, right? A judge looks up and the person standing in front of him

is his own son and he's guilty, no questions. Now if the judge says, case dismissed, that's my son, would that be just? No, that wouldn't be just. He wouldn't even be a good judge. He would be corrupt. So he judged his job. He gives him the full sentence, the full fine, but lays down the gavel, takes off his robe, and pays the fine. That's justice. That is the forgiveness of sins. That is mercy and that is grace all at one time. Was justice served? Was mercy shown? Yeah, yeah. In the same day, at the same time.

At the cross, the guilty just weren't simply let off, were they? No. There was a debt paid. Do you understand how debt works? Do you understand how that debt worked? Daniel, if I owe you a million dollars, April 10 pays your debt. Is the debt gone, but the price was still paid? Do you understand? Drew took on the debt. You were, you were guilty. You were so guilty. But God paid that debt.

He paid the debt. He took it all. He just didn't absolve you of sin. He just didn't say, hey, go ahead. Pass go, collect your 200 bucks. No, no, no. He took on every ounce of sin. Paul said God did it so that he may be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, just in mercy at the same time, at the same moment. God proclaimed it on the mountain. Jesus proved it at the cross.

Pretty complete story. And we see it all the way throughout. You see it in Jonah. We see it all over. We see it in Jonah who doesn't wanna forgive a people. How many of us are walking around with drudges of those people we just can't forgive? Maybe it's a childhood, petty, begrudgence, maybe it's somebody who doesn't vote your way. Maybe it's someone who doesn't believe what you believe. Maybe it's someone who sometimes uses a bad word. Where is that lack of forgiveness?

Because that's what we saw in Jonah, right? We know you're the most beautiful name. There is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, a binding, abounding, and steadfast love, right? We see that in Jonah. But we keep that stuff to ourselves. We keep it, we bottle it up. Or sometimes we do let it out in an ungracious way. So here's my question. Well, who would it look like for you to give today? Who do you need to forgive today? Last week I asked you a similar question. I asked you to think about that person who really could use to hear the good news. And I asked you to remember that name. This week I want you to, if it's the same person, awesome. If it's not, now you have two names. And God has opened the door and He's waiting for you to ask for His presence. He's waiting for you to walk through. He's not wanting you to walk through. He's wanting you to want to walk through.

Does that make sense? Do you love someone enough to forgive them today? Do you know of yourself and your faith in that relationship enough to get rid of those pieces that you've been holding onto? Those little sins that we keep hidden. And I do have homework for you. What kind of a professor would I be without giving you homework? The text says sometimes the slides are slow. It does not lie, Sean is not a liar. There it is.

In the most amazing verse tattooed on Drew's arm. And if you forget, you gotta just go talk to him, ask him, right? But there were seven things that were mentioned. Each day this week, last week I said, man, invite God's presence. But how do you do it? How about we start slow? Spiritual discipline doesn't start big. Spiritual discipline is slow. How about we start asking for the very attributes that God puts on his resume to be present in your life every day? You wanna do it with me? On Monday, man, I would love for you to say, God, I want you with me. I want to be a merciful person. I want to know what your mercy looks like and I want to show that to people. On Tuesday, grace. Pray for graciousness. Wednesday, pray for a longer nose.

Pray for a longer nose. Thursday, that's steadfast love. And again, I want you to apply both steps. I want you to apply the love of the Old Testament and the New Testament. I want you to chase down somebody and I want you to show them an endless love and I want you to tell them about it. Sound good? So Thursday's gonna be a hard one. Four Friday, faithfulness.

Not just faithfulness to his word, to his presence, to his commandments, but faithfulness to your word. And word to your spouse, words to your kids, words to your boss, your emails, your social media posts. Be faithful with your time. Be faithful with your money. On Saturday, I know I'll give you the hardest one right before church. That's your day to forgive. It's a Saturday, you have the time. God chose to forgive an entire nation of transgressions. God sent his son to die for every transgression you have ever made. What makes you think that you're good enough to not forgive somebody? Contact that person. Sound good? That may even be you, the person you need to contact. Sunday, oof, just, just. We're gonna work on justice. And this is where you're driving. It's not about you giving justice on the road, is it?

Now, if you're seeking your justice or the world's justice, you're doing it wrong. We're gonna pray for God's justice, and that doesn't come in the moment. What comes in the moment are those other six things. Sound good? Get your homework, can you write it down? Ready? Here's your second. The person next to you is your accountability partner. If there's no one next to you, look behind you. If there's no one there, Drew Caperton has plenty of free time. This doesn't work without accountability. It's not gonna work without accountability, at all, at all. Sound good? You don't have to say anything out loud, but I do, I want you to, whatever that picture is that you're holding in your head, for some of you, like I said, it's those broken pieces. For some of you, it's an altar that you haven't torn down. For some of you, it's a name, it's a person. For some of you, it's just needing to clear your stone

so that he can make you anew. Pray with me. God, you are the Lord, merciful and gracious. Lord, slow to anger. Your love is endless and faithful. God, I thank you so much that you did not make us search for what you are and who you are. God, you printed it on every page of this Bible, all the way from the New Testament to the Old. You gave us a model of what that looked like in Jesus Christ. You gave us his words, his teachings. You gave us promises that you have kept. Lord, we confess that we are a stubborn people. Lord, we break what you give us every day. I am so glad that you are willing to make it anew.

I am so glad that you get to say, bring me this stone. I'm gonna write it again. And God, these rules aren't just rules. Lord, these rules lead into something that is so much bigger that we will see an exodus later, Lord. These things are so much bigger than just establishing a right and wrong, or these are a picture of who you are. These are reasons that we do this, or because you want us to love you unwaveringly. We are a people that need ultimate focus, God. God, I ask you to give us the courage to break down the altars. Lord, I give you the courage for us to practice the characteristics of who you are in our lives every day. God, I give us the courage to take this and to spread your gospel to every single person that we see. God, light a fire in us so that when we hear your name, all we want to do is hit our knees like Moses. God, give us a passion that no flame on this earth could beat.

Lord, we love you so much for who you are. It is in your name that we pray, amen.